Golf is a popular game, widely enjoyed throughout the world. While the basics of golf are easy to learn, the subtle skills of driving and putting may take years to develop. Although public and private golf courses are available in most cities, availability of an outdoor course will be dependent on weather conditions and the season. Furthermore, it is often impractical for a player to journey to a distant golf course for only a short practice round. To provide practice time off the course, a number of putting practice devices have been marketed.
Commercially available golf putting practice devices are known in the art, including those that simulate a golf putting green by using a closely cropped simulated grass indoor/outdoor carpeting material. These devices frequently have a ramped surface which leads up to a flat putting platform containing a golf putting cup. In some devices ramped returns bring the ball from the cup back to the initial putting surface.
In addition, there are devices for the serious golf student which sense golf ball speed and timing and which emit audible messages or visual messages to instruct the golfer in game improvement. Such sophisticated devices are expensive, due to their use of complicated photoelectric beam sensing devices, microprocessors and voice synthesizers, or light emitting diodes (LED). These devices may be programmed to deliver an oral message or compute measurements and relay the results visually or aurally.
Putting practice devices which provide detailed putt information may be intimidating to the casual player, and, due to the precision sensors and computers required, are costly to produce.
What is need is a play apparatus which permits golf practice and which interacts with the player yet which may be manufactured at a low cost.